Monkee Business Brings Together Mother's, Children's Generations

“OK, OK, I’ll write about the Monkees,” I told Colleen. After extremely heavy lobbying from Colleen and her friend, Michelle, I decided to tell you about this fabulous ‘60s singing group, the Monkees, which is making a comeback.
Although Colleen is the main Monkeemania fan around here, her hysteria has been contagious. Whenever she baby-sits for the little kids, she entertains them by playing a Monkees tape and getting our little monkeys to sing and dance along. Until I told her to quit it, she was answering the phone by saying, “Monkeeland.” Now 3-year-old Mike insists on getting on the phone and saying, “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees.”
Colleen also thinks we should name the new baby Davey, so all our little boys will have the same names as the Monkees: Mickey, Mike, Peter and Davey. That is if we change Johnny’s name to Mickey.
Recently, the Monkees appeared in concert in Omaha. Lucky for Colleen’s dad, Michelle’s dad took the girls to see them. When Colleen arrived home flushed with excitement, I politely listened to her account of the evening, and then I started looking through her souvenir program.
“Herman’s Hermits were there?” I asked.
“You’ve heard of them?” Colleen asked.
I turned the page. “Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were there, too? I would love to see them perform.”
“You’ve heard of them, too?” Colleen said in disbelief.
“How could you remember those guys and not care about the Monkees?”
“I remember the Monkees, but I guess I never paid much attention to them.”
“Mom, what groups did you like in the ‘60s?”
“The Beatles and the Supremes were my favorites,” I answered.
My friend Phyllis used to come over to our house, stand in front of the fireplace in our family room pretending it was a stage and using a vacuum cleaner hose as a microphone would imitate Diana Ross, the leader of the Supremes whenever “Baby Love” came on the radio. It was a great performance.
“How did you dress then?” Colleen asked. “Did you ever wear sleeveless turtlenecks?”
“I think that is what we wore with miniskirts and most of our minidresses were sleeveless.”
“Did you save any of them?”
“I only saved things with sentimental memories.”
“You mean that old box of junk in the basement? That stuff is only good for dressing up as a nerd. Didn’t you save anything that I could wear now?”
“I guess not.”
It’s too bad that I didn’t, but I doubt she’d use the old clothes except to dress up the little kids to impersonate the Monkees.
As you have probably noticed, the music and clothes of the ‘60s are becoming popular again, but the kids if the ‘80s are wearing hairstyles from the ‘50s. In the mid-60s, I thought a flattop, a buzz or a Mohawk were really out-of-it haircuts. Everyone had to have hair, long hair, to be with it.
Since I was born in the late ‘40s, the number of years I’ve had to live to get me to the 1980s has worn down my acceptance level. I don’t think I could enjoy or even tolerate looking at a nation of long-hairs, especially if some of them lived right in this house. So despite my aversion to the modern-day adaptations of the 1950’s crewcut, especially the Mohawk, I can put up with them because at least they are clean and neat-looking.
For the 13 years that I’ve been a parent, I’ve been warned that my troubles won’t really begin until my children become teenagers. But I figure if they like the same music I liked as a teen-ager, wear the same style of clothes, and we don’t have to argue about the length of their hair, life has to be at least bearable. Well, at least until those white go-go boots surface again.
July 16, 1986